Plenty of companies would love to get their hands on our wallets. But Google wants to go one step further: it wants to be our wallets. Its new phone software, called Google Wallet, is intended to replace the credit cards in our actual wallets.

It does sound pretty spectacular, doesn’t it? No fishing plastic cards out of wallets, no paper slips, no signatures. Everything is handled securely, instantly, conveniently, with one tap of your phone at the register. Europeans and Asians already routinely pay for things that way. Why can’t we have that in America?

At the moment, the free Google Wallet app runs on only a single cellphone model: Sprint’s Google Nexus S, which runs Google’s Android software. That’s because Google Wallet requires a special N.F.C. chip (near-field communications), and the Nexus S is one of the few phones so equipped.
Someday, Google says, many more phones will have N.F.C. chips. The company says that it’s in talks with every major Android phone maker.

The next question: Where can you use Wallet to pay for things? Google had the inspired idea of teaming up with MasterCard, which has already installed N.F.C. readers at 150,000 merchants in the United States and 230,000 overseas. You can see the black MasterCard PayPass terminals all over the place.

That’s 150,000 companies; the total number of physical stores is far higher. At the moment, they include CVS, Duane Reade, RadioShack, Sunoco, Sports Authority, Foot Locker and New York City taxis. In coming weeks, Google says, more stores will come along, including Subway, Macy’s, Walgreens and Bloomingdale’s. Someday, Google says,the readers will be installed at cash registers all across this great land.

That’s the next generation of merchant participation. In SingleTap establishments, Wallet is more than a credit card stunt double. It also stores digital coupons, loyalty points cards and Groupon-style special deals. (Already, Google’s shameless Groupon imitator, called Google Offers, is automatically linked to Google Wallet. Offers is available in only a few cities at this point.) When you tap your phone at the register, you simultaneously pay for your purchase and get the promised discounts and frequent-shopper points. One tap instead of fumbling with four cards.

Someday, Google says, SingleTap will be everywhere. It says that 30 merchants have already committed to adding this feature, although the necessary upgrades in hardware and software at the registers could take time. At that point Wallet will be much more than a glorified credit card. It will be the cornerstone of a huge economic ecosystem of banks, merchants, advertisers and other companies. It will replace everything in your wallet: tickets, boarding passes, transit cards. All electronic, all secure, all wireless and easy.

Someday, Google says, you might wind up walking down the aisles of Best Buy. If you’ve permitted it,the phone will know where you are in the store. It will know you’re in the TV section. An offer will appear on your phone, offering $600 off a certain Panasonic TV if you buy in the next 30 minutes. You’ll walk to the cashier on the spot, buy that TV and enjoy that savings.

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